A catalogue of affordable, simple tools to help you collect data, communicate with clients, and measure impact

Catalogue Overview

Last updated: September 2016

What if nonprofits and social enterprises had an affordable way to report real-time, large-scale data on their social impact?

This question inspired us to create this catalogue.

The Impact Tracker Technology (ITT) catalogue features a compilation of low cost, information communications technology-based tools intended to help our peers in the development sector collect data, communicate with their clients and measure their impact.

The ITT catalogue makes it easy for organisations to better understand the range of affordable impact tracking technology options available, empowering them to choose the right tools to suit their needs. It also displays relevant research findings so that users can draw their own comparisons.

In order to keep up-to-date with the rapid developments of the Information and Communication Technologies for Development sector and to improve overall usability, this catalogue will undergo regular updates over time.

Tools to digest, crunch, and analyze thousands of data entries and present them in the form of interactive live dashboard using simple steps.

How Did We Create It?

Creating the ITT catalogue involved countless hours of researching the tools online in order to understand a range of items including features, usage, and pricing. Since the best way to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a tool is to use it, we also experimented with as many of the tools as possible in Kopernik’s own projects and activities.

Alongside conducting desk research and using the tools on ourselves, we also conducted a number of interviews with of tech developers and tech users. These conversations were very informative and helped us understand how and why these tools were developed, what challenges the developers faced, how developers understood their competition, and who uses these technologies.

Who should use this catalogue?

This catalogue has been designed, researched, and written with the following type of organisation in mind:

A small to medium social enterprise, NGO or a nonprofit organisation working in international development or humanitarian emergencies.

Its main office is located in an urban area with decent infrastructure and has access to slow to medium internet connection.

The organisation engages in work in rural, last-mile communities where mobile (2G) and internet (3G) connections are limited.

Financially, the organisation cannot afford to build its own independent IT capacity in terms of hardware, software, and know-how.

EXAMPLES OF THE TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS WE HAD IN MIND WHEN DESIGNING THE EVALUATION OF THE ITT TOOLS

A Kenyan NGO, working in the water and sanitation sector. Using grants and donations, the organisation builds community-managed water sources and toilets in five slum areas in Nairobi, and five in rural villages. So far, it managed to establish 10 public water sources servicing 500 households. They hire field workers to conduct bi-monthly monitoring visits using digital data collection software to document their progress and ensure that the facilities are being used and maintained by the respective communities.

An Indian social enterprise committed to distributing simple, life-changing technologies to remote communities through its micro-reseller network. Most of their resellers and customers only own basic phones with limited access to the internet. Besides monitoring the sales and repayments of their resellers , the organisation is also actively monitoring the use of their solar lights and clean cook-stoves using SMS and voice calling platform to gather the information.

An Indonesian NGO, working in emergency response, wants to assess the damage of an eruption that just shook the urban area of North Sumatra. The NGO wants to collect data from different sources to gain a comprehensive picture of the conditions by using geospatial mapping tools and facilitate the necessary assistance to reach the ground.